Outside, night became day. The two portholes over the file cabinets changed into floodlights beaming a multi-colored glow into the cabin. It was another sub-space storm aurora. A message was coming in, and the force behind it made her doubt that the changes the gossamer sphere had made thus far to the earth were working. The energy pulses coursing through her body were stronger than ever, and the show this time lasted for several minutes. While everyone in the room but Bill suffered through the discomfort of it, Bill kept asking, “What’s going on? What’s wrong with you people?”
Finally, it ended. Griffey sat slumped in his chair, breathing hard and staring at Lizbeth. His eyes reminded her of Caitlin’s, swirling as if each orb was home to a galaxy of stars.
“Why did you say the crown was going to stop what’s happening to the world?” he asked.
Lizbeth exchanged a look with Zach. In her mind, she imagined she heard his voice: be careful what you say.
“Maybe you should ask Bill what’s going on,” she said. “He’s the one who set it all into motion.”
Bill was leaning back against the door with his arms crossed. “I already said he wouldn’t believe me. I don’t know how much Caitlin told you, but there’s a lot of bizarre stuff involved here.”
Zach held a hand out palm up to indicate Griffey. “You mean like shapeshifters?”
Bill’s head went back. A small silence passed while he studied Griffey and appeared to absorb Zach’s veiled assertion that Griffey was a shapeshifter, too. “Yeah, like that.”
The light from the desk lamp cast deep shadows over Griffey’s face, emphasizing his craggy profile and the bags under his deep-set eyes. He looked tired, and Lizbeth wondered if he was experiencing negative aftereffects from the message.
She halfway expected him to deny it, but he said, “Caitlin and I were members of an ancient society, only it wasn’t ancient when we joined. Recruitment was limited to the young, intelligent and strong. The ritual was simple, but deadly for most.”
“Touch the crown,” Lizbeth whispered.
Griffey heard her, and shrugged one shoulder. “Dozens of people died every year hoping to attain power and immortality. Maybe one out of a hundred survived. Once the Romans invaded our shores, they mistook it for human sacrifice and decided we were barbarians. Before they came, our people were revered. We were the nobles, the healers, scholars, philosophers, judges and teachers for centuries.”
“Druids,” Zach murmured, and Griffey nodded.
“The Roman Empire persecuted us out of fear, and those who survived went into hiding or left the country. The nobles were in charge of protecting the crown, but they began to die off, one by one, until there was only one left – Caitlin.”
A light knock sounded on the door and Griffey called, “Yes?”
The officer stationed outside leaned his torso in and shook his head at Griffey, which Lizbeth took to mean they hadn’t found the crown on the drill ship. Griffey nodded curtly in dismissal and once the officer shut the door, rested his chin in his folded hands and glared at Bill.
“Where’s the damned crown?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can have you arrested, you know,” Griffey said.
“For what?”
“We’ve got six bodies on slabs at the morgue. The mere suggestion it was caused by an agent that could be used in a terrorist attack will get you a comfortable cell. Caitlin may have resisted my interrogation techniques, but I assure you, you won’t.”
Lizbeth gasped when she heard all the scientists had died, but Bill’s face didn’t change. She looked back and forth between the two men. Caitlin said Griffey had been her friend, but then he’d disappeared from her life only to reappear as a powerful adversary. Lizbeth was pretty sure Bill had been more than a friend to Caitlin at some point, but now they, too, were at odds. At least Bill’s motives, if not his methods, seemed honorable; he was attempting to find a different way to stop the sphere, wasn’t he? Griffey didn’t even seem to know about the sphere, yet he was after the crown with a frightening single-mindedness. He and Caitlin obviously had different plans for the crown, but what did he want it for?
“The deaths weren’t caused by the crown,” Bill said.
“Don’t tell him,” Lizbeth said.
Griffey’s eyebrows lifted, creating three narrow furrows in his forehead. “Make up your mind. You said he set all this in motion. Someone explain to me-”
A commotion from the corridor interrupted what Lizbeth suspected would have become a tirade. Griffey shouldered Bill aside and opened the door.
“Fireballs in the sky!” The officer shouted, even though he was five feet away. “Dozens of them. Asteroids or missiles!”
Griffey followed the officer down the dark corridor. Lizbeth and the others exchanged quick looks.
“Let’s get out of here,” Zach said. Bill was closest to the door and he led the way down the corridor and up the ladder to the deck. The sky was lit up again, only this time, bright balls of white flame streaked through the atmosphere. Some trailed away and disappeared, some rained down. Lizbeth instinctively ducked as a loud whoosh preceded a fireball that exploded in the ocean mere miles from where they were anchored.
Griffey was nowhere in sight. One of the officers ran up and she thought he was going to make them go below, but he attempted to get past them. Bill grabbed his arm and asked, “What’s happening?”
“Command says it’s satellites! They’re crashing to the ground all over the northern hemisphere! They’ve lost communication with the space station!” The officer yanked his arm away and rushed off.
Lizbeth remembered what Caitlin had said, “The sphere has been struggling to receive messages for some time now. Climate changes caused by greenhouse gasses, space cluttered with orbiting satellites and junk, all have interfered.”
She stared around her at the hail of fire, convinced that the last aurora must have been more than a message.
Chapter Twenty-seven
The North Sea
The afterimage from the last big fireball hadn’t yet faded from his retinas when Zach heard a sibilant whistling that rapidly gained in volume. Another satellite had entered the atmosphere, and as the flaming ball of wreckage approached, it illuminated the deck of the ship and the ocean all around them. In the eerie glow, he mentally marked the location of the nearby drill ship. The sound grew to ear-splitting proportions as the light became brighter than a white-hot day. One of the officers screamed, “Incoming!”
The light was too brilliant for Zach to assess the fireball’s trajectory, but it seemed to be coming straight for them. His instinct was to jump overboard, but he had a feeling the odds of survival were slightly better on the ship. Standing next to him, Lizbeth cringed, and he pulled her into his arms and bent over her, even though his body would not provide much of a shield from what was coming.
When it hit a few hundred yards from the bow of the ship, the fireball shot an enormous steaming column of water high into the air. Zach didn’t have time to rejoice, because immediately following in the fireball’s plume came a barrage of deadly projectiles, penetrating the ship like machine-gun fire.
Someone on the bow shrieked in agony, but the piercing sound was cut off by a cascade of hot seawater raining down on them. The water tore Zach’s footing out from under him and swept him along the deck. Submerged in the flow, he and Lizbeth clutched each other as the waves tumbled them up and over the rail. He lost hold of Lizbeth in the fall, and with the light from the fireball effectively extinguished, he couldn’t see anything. He tried to tuck his body into a ball as he fell, but he hit the water awkwardly. It slammed into his shoulder, neck and the side of his face. Immersed underwater, he floated in a cold cocoon, silent but for the ringing of his ears.
Lizbeth!
Zach kicked for the surface, but panicked when he realized he didn’t know which way was up. He needed to help himself before he could help her, so he relaxed and trusted his training. His open eyes saw b
lackness all around. He had a lungful of air, and his body should be floating upward, but he was too disoriented from the fall to sense any movement. As his lungs began to burn, he put a hand in front of his mouth and released a stream of bubbles. They trickled along his cheeks up into the hair at his temples. He swept his arms in a wide breast stroke and frog-kicked desperately in the direction of the bubbles. Two kicks, three, four – finally his head broke the surface and he gulped in ragged breaths of air.
“Lizbeth!” he yelled when he’d barely caught his breath.
“Zach? I’m here.”
“Where are you guys?” It was Kevin’s voice. He’d been swept overboard, too. Zach closed his eyes in relief.
When he opened them again, he realized there was a light source somewhere, since he could see the rusty hulk of The Gossamer about twenty yards away. He tilted his head back to look at the sky, but saw only fading streaks of light. Dropping his gaze to the side of the ship, he noticed a reddish glow emanating from on deck.
Someone treading water nearby called, “The ship’s on fire.”
The male voice didn’t belong to Kevin, so Zach asked, “Who’s there?”
“It’s Bill. We need to get away from here. With all that water, I’m guessing the only thing that could be burning right now is oil or fuel.”
Zach toed his shoes off and joined the others as they swam toward the drill ship through the now calm sea. He looked over his shoulder several times during the long, taxing swim to watch the fire grow larger. When they reached the drill ship, Bill hollered to the crew and within minutes they were safe on board. The captain met them on deck and shook Bill’s hand heartily.
“We saw the asteroid hit and thought you were done for.”
“You and me both,” Bill replied. “But it wasn’t an asteroid. Apparently, we’ve lost all our satellites.”
“Bloody hell. That explains a lot. We’ve got a real muddle in the control room.”
Zach looked at The Gossamer. Three rescue boats had arrived, maintaining a safe distance from the ship. Two of the boats shot narrow streams of water at the fire. The third swept the sea with searchlights.
“I suggest we put some space between us and that.” Bill jerked his head at the flames.
“Right,” the captain said. “Can’t go far without functioning equipment, though.”
Someone brought a stack of blankets, and Zach draped one over Lizbeth’s shivering shoulders before wrapping one around himself. Beyond the burning ship, the coast of England seemed peaceful and unaffected by recent events.
“Let’s get you kids below deck and see if we can find some dry clothes,” Bill said.
Zach had barely begun the motion to turn away from The Gossamer when the aft deck exploded in an immense cloud of fiery black smoke. Reflexively, he ducked, as the concussive boom blasted them with scorching heat. Once the rolling smoke cleared, he saw that the three rescue boats appeared to be unharmed. The third boat joined in pumping water on the fire.
Lizbeth leaned into him. “I wonder if Griffey made it.”
Zach detected a note of sympathy in her voice, so he deliberately reminded her who Griffey was. “He’s probably the only woman in the lifeboat.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
The North Sea
Kevin sat on his old bunk and rolled up the cuffs on a borrowed pair of work pants. The claustrophobic space brought back memories of his nausea-filled summer. He was frankly surprised he hadn’t had to make a run for the bathroom yet.
Zach had flopped on the top bunk and was bemoaning the loss of his laptop. “I had everything backed up to thumb drives, too, most of which were also in my backpack, which has now been blown to smithereens.”
“I think we have more important things to worry about, dude,” Kevin said.
Legs appeared over the side of the bunk. Kevin stared at bare ankles poking out of too-short jeans and the battered sneakers Zach had been given to wear. When Zach slid off the bed, Kevin braced for another confrontation. By now, he knew Zach could kick his butt, probably without much effort, but he wasn’t intimidated. Zach had been a jerk from the get-go, and now that he took every opportunity to flirt with Lizbeth he was really getting on Kevin’s nerves.
A light tapping on the door interrupted whatever Zach had on his mind. He opened it and Lizbeth slipped into the cabin.
“Like my duds?” she asked, pirouetting in the minuscule space. “One of the scientists bailed on some of her stuff.”
There wasn’t much to comment on about the plain black slacks and baggy t-shirt, but Zach said, “You look great.”
Kevin recognized the t-shirt with its faded concert logo. One of the less formal of the scientists had worn it often under her lab coat. She’d left the ship at the same time as Kevin, before anyone had gotten sick. According to Bill, none of the scientists were left on board, and none of the crew was allowed to leave under the terms of the quarantine. Griffey had broken the rules when he transported Bill to The Gossamer, but then, as he’d said, he knew the sickness wasn’t contagious. He just didn’t know it wasn’t the crown that caused it.
“She wasn’t one of the ones that died,” he said.
Lizbeth turned wide, horrified eyes on him as if it hadn’t occurred to her that she might be wearing a dead woman’s clothes.
Zach snorted in laughter. “Smooth as usual.”
“Yeah, but your outfit belonged to one of the first to go,” Kevin lied.
Zach pulled a face at him and Lizbeth said, “Cut it out, you two. Maybe we should brainstorm where Caitlin might be.”
“Personally, I’m about twenty hours behind on my sleep,” Zach said. He vaulted up onto the bunk. Kevin couldn’t see him, but from the sound of it, Zach was stretching out and making himself comfortable. First one, then the other shoe thumped to the floor.
Lizbeth looked disappointed, but she said, “That’s a good idea, I guess.”
Kevin took pity on her. “You don’t have to leave if you don’t want to. We can talk.”
Her eyes flicked up to the top bunk and back. “That’s okay. I’m tired, too. Zach’s right – we should rest up so whatever tomorrow throws at us won’t be…well…alright, tomorrow’s probably going to be just as crazy, if not worse, than today. But sleep is good.”
Kevin thought her sudden babbling proved her need for sleep, until he caught another wistful look towards the top bunk and realized she must really want to spend time with Zach. Zach must have noticed, too, because his legs reappeared and he jumped off the bed. Kevin looked away when he placed his hands on her shoulders and dipped his head. He heard it though, a quick, light pecking sound, and suddenly he was infuriated that Zach would kiss her like that, right in front of him.
As Zach leapt confidently back onto the bed, Kevin couldn’t help but sneak a peek at Lizbeth’s flushed and pleased face. She stumbled out and he sat there for a long time staring at the closed door.
Up until now he’d been exhausted, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he resolved his anger, something he wouldn’t be able to do in the same room with the source of that anger. Zach, who’d been so critical of his snoring, was doing a fine imitation of a slowly drawn hacksaw on wood.
Before Kevin knew it, he’d left the cabin and made his way down the silent corridor to the lab. Everything looked exactly the same as when he’d left. Somehow he imagined that the departing scientists would have packed up the equipment, but it was all there, neatly laid out on pristine stainless steel counters. The lab was as cold as ever, like the frozen food aisle at the grocery store. Deep glass-fronted refrigerators and freezers took up one whole wall of the large space. Inside were long tubes containing core samples, stacked and labeled.
Even though he knew the lab was empty, Kevin looked to his right and left before moving toward the freezers. He’d typed and labeled most of these core samples himself, so he knew the system. The only one he hadn’t labeled, the last sample containing the iridium, wasn’t where it should be. Had Gr
iffey’s hazmat-suited men confiscated it? But then, why would they? Griffey hadn’t known about the core sample.
Kevin looked around the lab until he spotted the refrigerator in the corner. It was a regular kitchen-appliance type refrigerator where slices from the core samples shared space with the scientist’s lunches. His borrowed sneakers squeaked with every step across the linoleum floor. The refrigerator was empty. The freezer compartment, however, held a large plastic tub of vanilla and orange sherbet ice cream. The tub was semi-transparent, and the “ice cream” was much darker than it should be. He started to reach for it, but stopped.
He may be descended from a shapeshifter, but after Caitlin’s dire warnings he wasn’t fool enough to think that would protect him from the horrible consequences of touching it. He went to the drawer where they kept the latex gloves and wrestled a pair onto his hands. The tub was heavier than he expected. The weight strained the plastic handle and he’d just decided to put it back and try picking it up from the bottom when the handle snapped. The tub landed on its side and the lid burst open, shooting half the contents all down the front of his shirt. He shoved the tub back into the freezer and stepped back, frantically brushing at his clothes, stopping only when he tasted salt on his lips. Specks of the moist deep-ocean silt had sprayed his face and now he’d even consumed a minute quantity.
His heart began to pound and he broke out into a nervous sweat. Core samples were normally solid, as weight from successive layers compressed it, eventually forming rock. Despite the fact that this sample was loose and sandy, he had no doubt that he’d just inadvertently exposed himself to the final core sample. Disgusted with his clumsiness and not a little frightened, he found a broom and began to sweep up. He would have to tell Bill what he’d done so no one touched the refrigerator or the floor around it until it was decontaminated.
The Gossamer Crown: Book One of The Gossamer Sphere Page 11